Personal Purgatory
by Pawn of Pawns
Summary: Shinichi wishes he could be with Ran. Warning for Graphic depictions of longing.


**Author Notes**: Well, I was inspired by so-called "brain sex" fics. I wanted to try my own hand at it and came up with this. It's a bit creepier than I planned it to be, but I am currently happy with it.

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There are many things Shinichi dislikes about being Conan. The height is one. Not being able to do simple tasks, like reaching the cookies on the top shelf, is a huge blow to his ego, which is much larger than he will ever admit.

The disrespect he gets is another. He despises the uphill battle he faces every time he tries to get an adult's attention in the face of an emergency. Even adults he knows and considers his friends are initially skeptical of his ideas, and he has to waste time convincing them he is right.

And yet another is the company Conan keeps. Okay, so the kids aren't all that bad—he has gotten used to them, after all. And even though the professor is odd, it's nice to be able to talk to someone like an adult. And although Hattori is a nuisance, he is an intelligent and loyal friend. Alright, so maybe he is misspoken: it's not so much the company Conan keeps, as the fact that Shinichi can't be himself when around them. Even when he drops the mask, he cannot change the costume.

And never is this quite so painful as when he is around Ran.

Sometimes he wonders if she does it on purpose, circling her arms around him, pressing her chest tightly against his back. When she wears low-cut clothes, she sometimes drops her defenses around Conan and he gets a good look at her cleavage. He is at the perfect height to study her long, shapely legs. In fact, he has been such a good study that he can map the constellation of freckles on her legs. It's enough to make his adolescent brain in his prepubescent body go mad.

Most nights he gets in bed at 9 only to lay there for hours, reading or thinking, until he falls asleep. Sometimes, he waits, listening intently for Ran to enter her own room. When he hears her door close, he sneaks out. He has to time it perfectly, before Ran falls asleep.

He knocks on her door and opens it a sliver. Ran looks back in surprise, her Pajamas already on and she is just about ready to climb into bed.

"Conan-kun? Why are you up?" she asks.

"I-I can't sleep," he says, doing his best impression of a defenseless seven-year-old. Sometimes, he clutches a teddy bear for added affect.

Ran smiles, understanding. She lifts up the covers and climbs in, patting the bed besides her. "Come here and sleep with me," she says.

He doesn't think that she knows—after all, how could she know? Anyone would offer to share their bed with a child scared of the dark. He climbs into the bed and she smothers him with blankets, puts her arm around him and pulls him in close. She curls up with him like a stuffed animal, folding her arms and legs around him, and he is lost in her. Overcome by her. She becomes his purgatory.

Instantly, she falls asleep, but he stays up for hours memorizing the look and the feel of the moment. Her warm breath hits his cheek, coming from two cherry red lips that inspire temptation. Raven black hair as soft as down falls across her face. Sometimes, he risks gently brushing it back so that he can watch her better as she dreams. Ran talks in her sleeps, but the words come out like moans. Low, nonsensical whimpers that lose their meanings in the land of the wake. Occasionally he can make out names. While Ran is caught in the passions of a fevered dream, he has heard her cry out "Shinichi." Sometimes, she has called for "Conan."

He draws as close as he can while she sleeps—his skin tingles through pajamas at the points where their limbs touch. Never is it close enough, he wants to be closer. More than anything he wants to be with her. Breathing in sync, their bodies fall and rise together.

Nights like these are the ultimate form of torture, to see the forbidden fruit being sweetly dangled in front of him. He knows how he feels, but he is unable to tell her and unable to take the next step. She suffers daily because of him, and he can do nothing to ease her pain.

These nights are as much an addiction as they are an agony. A couple of times every month, he finds himself in front of her door, looking as hopeless as he feels. Lately he's been going more, and he knows he has to stop before Kogoro becomes suspicious; however, he's not sure if he can.

In the morning they wake together. Ran opens her eyes and smiles as she sees him staring at her. She yawns a "Good morning." Sometimes, they way she looks at him it's as if she's really looking at him, and not just at Conan. Then, she kisses him on the forehead and leaps over him out of bed. She does her daily stretches and he can see how the skin moves over her strong muscles.

After she is done, she slaps him on the head. "Get out of bed, or you'll be late for school," she says playfully. Then she kicks him out so she can get dressed. It's too much to hope that she'll let him stay. He stumbles over to the room he and Kogoro share, exhausted from being up most of the night. Carefully he puts on his clothes, as well as his Conan persona. By the time he goes out for breakfast he is bright eyed and ostensibly ready for a fun day of learning, even though for the rest of the day he will be distracted by his longing and his guilt.

Shinichi hates a lot of things about being Conan, but the thing he hates the most is not being with her.

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**Editing Notes:** Originally I had Conan sneak into Ran's room after she already fell asleep, only to be reminded that Ran sleeps like a log. (This is why I need to reread the early parts of the series.) Thanks to livejournal user, tivelysplit, for pointing that out. Otherwise, this is completely un-betaed.

I've been meaning to update this all summer, it's nice to finally have done so. Any and all constructive criticism is welcome.


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